An ad on my Facebook page from barackobama.com reads, “Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich say they would start foreign aid to Israel at zero. Reject their extreme plan now!”
This struck me as odd for two reasons.
In his remarks to the Australian parliament on November 17, President Obama declared that the U. S. was making the Asia-Pacific region a top priority. While promising a continued U.S. military presence in the region, Obama also expressed his intention to strengthen U.S.-China cooperation. This declaration, however, was made at the same time as Obama announced a series of anti-China measures: to station U.S. forces permanently in Australia for the first time, to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a multilateral trade agreement that excludes China – and to discuss the South China Sea Islands at the ASEAN summit, to Beijing’s displeasure. Therefore, the Japanese media view Obama’s emphasis on Asia as strengthening an anti-China containment ring.
With parliamentary and presidential elections coming up in 2012, South Korea is in the midst of its very first social-network-driven political season on the world’s stage. After nearly half a decade of the conservative policies of the Lee Myung Bak administration, Koreans seem ready to swing back to the left. The election in October of a progressive as the mayor of Seoul heralds this trend. This race also served as a beta test for an effective web-based campaign model in Korea. A key test issue for the opposition is the naval base that the government is constructing on Jeju Island.
Pakistan is apprehensive that dams India is building will threaten the flow of the Indus through Pakistan.
The remnants of Iranian dissident group the MEK confined to an Iraqi refugee camp face a massacre when the United States leaves.
Israel may believe that the downed drone in Iran contains data for an attack.
Afghan National Security Forces have yet to play the lead role in the Afghanistan war.
The media has finally discovered the new nuclear pit facility being built — at outrageous cost — at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Recent transformations in the international system, notably the rise of China and an economic slump in the West, are rapidly ushering in a new age in Australian foreign policy. Slowly the sleeping continent has awoken to the din of machinery in uranium mines, shipbuilders in dry docks, and the arrival of a new contingent of U.S. Marines – the latter only the most recent indication of a re-posturing of the country’s foreign policy against perceived Chinese expansionism.
Apparently the rationale that Israeli war hawks and the Americans who enable them have long harbored for attacking Iran is mutating.